Cormac Battle has escaped the clutches of Dublin’s vilest landlords, and now spends his days watching 24-hour news channels and enjoying his luxury mattress. He can explain the Sandy Thom CD, really.
John Walshe talks to Wilt frontman Cormac Battle about the band s new single, their forthcoming Dublin show, and why the music industry is like a virus.
It’s hardcore heaven this autumn as Dischord records release a 20-year retrospective CD, the story of Hope Promotions is chronicled in a new book and Fugazi return for an Irish tour
Hotpress hitch a ride on the Wilt tour bus for the band’s whistle-stop tour of Europe. For tales of on-stage abandon, backstage debauchery and bizarre drumming accidents, read on. Plus Cormac Battle’s tour diary
Three bands, 10 venues, 12 dates, four DJ comperes and two high-profile corporate sponsors, including the official national pop station. Jackie Hayden talks to the bands scheduled to play this year’s RTÉ 2fm 2moro 2our, coming to a town near you.
Many Irish radio fans reckon that the 2fm evening schedule is at its most exciting for years – from 6 pm, when a revitalised Dave Fanning comes on, right through to Hotpress columnist Cormac Battle signing off at 2am. One of the linchpins of that stretch is Dubliner Rick O’Shea. To celebrate his tenth year in radio we sent Jackie Hayden to ask O’Shea a few leading questions and to check out the great man’s credentials with his colleagues.
If anyone had told me a year ago that I’d be flinging my knickers at a bloke in a catsuit and another who used to be in a boy band I’d have told them to fuck right off. But, they wore me down and I eventually succumbed to the cock rockin’ charms of The Darkness (albeit with the help of a persistent Stuart Clark). And as for old Trousersnake, well, frankly, who wouldn’t?
From Kilkenny to LA, kerbdog have been on a seven-year learning curve that's produced a powerful second album, On The Turn. barry glendenning hears how, after an inauspicious beginning, they finally got their act together. Pic: cathal dawson.
RTÉ is doing its bit for Irish music with the 2FM 2moro 2our. Patrick Freyne went along to the live launch to catch a glimpse of the hit bands of the future.
If there was a competition to replace St. Patrick with someone else worth honouring on a national day, who would you choose - and why? Jackie Hayden consults a living Irish legend and canvasses celebrity opinion
On the eve of the 25th anniversary of 2FM, Jackie Hayden invites FM boss John Clarke to take an over, under, sideways, down look at 2FM – the station of the stars.
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the dissection of the rock ‘n’ roll year that is the Hot Press Summit. Gathering round the table are the good and great of Irish music, but who let Podge & Rodge in?
The local support acts have been unveiled for the RTÉ 2fm 2moro 2our, which finds Messiah J & The Expert, Giveamanakick and The Flaws zapping round the country for a goodly part of May.
Carlsberg don’t do comebacks, but if they did, it would probably go a little something like this one. Some bands just deserve to be resurrected, and Kerbdog are very much one of them.
Festival season again, and, as if on cue, the debut album from Kilkenny's Wilt arrives in a squall of seamless, subtext-free grunge pop and three-minute mosh-o-ramas readymade for summer location broadcasts on MTV.
Our annual HP-7 summit brings together some of the pre-eminent movers and shakers in irish music to reflect on everything from backstage catering to the end of war, pestilence and famine. Your host: Stuart Clark.
Oxegen is ready to kick off properly in the next half an hour, and with the first act due on stage, we've got the first report from our reporter in the field – literally – including a full weather report!
Watching so many acts in sequence, the audience may have discerned a hierarchy. Those on the cusp of mainstream success played with a cocky disregard for the actual event.
What is it with Irish band-member casualties this summer? The latest to head to A&E is Darragh Butler, drummer out of Wilt. Read on to find out what happened, and to hear how their European tour kicked continental arse anyway
The IMRO Showcase Tour returns for its 17th year in spring 2008, and hundreds of Irish acts are expected to join the race for a highly coveted slot at one of the nationwide series of gigs.
So popular is the Rock The Vote campaign that it's become something of a celeb magnet. Watch videos from the likes of Cillian Murphy, Dara O'Briain, Katy French and more, who all have one clear message!
So popular is the Rock The Vote campaign that it's become something of a celeb magnet. Watch videos from the likes of Damien Dempsey, Mario Rosenstock and more, who all have one clear message!
There's one sure fire way to bring your music to the attention of the masses – and that's by getting it played on radio. Fortunately, Ireland has no lack of independently inclined stations out there – most of which play demos.
Larry Gogan, Cormac Battle, Jenny Greene and Dan Hegarty are among the panel of experts lined up by RTÉ 2fm, to offer advice and assistance to musicians and bands at The Music Show.
